


Slight Changes

by acenetical



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Gen, Karl Jacobs-centric, Kinda, Light Angst, Not Beta Read, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29671872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acenetical/pseuds/acenetical
Summary: Karl gets sent back to the L'manburg election. He never knew such a small change would change his world so drastically
Relationships: Karl Jacobs & Ranboo, Karl Jacobs & Sapnap, Karl Jacobs & TommyInnit, Karl Jacobs & Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 2
Kudos: 107
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> //Warning for slight panic in the second chapter//
> 
> This is all prewritten I just wanna upload it in 2 chapters

Karl was working on building up his new country. He knew that the Greater DreamSMP wasn’t safe anymore and he had to move before it became unsafe. He managed to grab the most important aspects of his library and convinced Sapnap and George to come with him. He had hoped to convince more people but he either couldn’t find them or they flat out refused. He understood why he had started a lot of countries, and pretty much all of them had fallen pretty quickly. He was determined to stop that trend with this one. He had a reason this country needed to stay afloat. 

The blood vines had taken over the vast majority of the Greater DreamSMP, and everyone could tell they were bad news. Mind controlling a bunch of people and making them spread more icky red vines, not exactly a good omen. But he hoped he could find out how to stop them, even though it was almost hopeless. He had found the egg multiple hundreds of years back, destroying it didn’t seem like a possibility. His only chance was to move as many people as far away from it as possible. And he was going to try his honking best.

“KARL!” Sapnap barreled into him as he dropped another bunch of wood planks.

“SAPNAP!” Karl fell on the ground, carefully avoiding the wood on the floor. “MY LOVE! You find more mushrooms?” Sapnap immediately jumped up at that and started digging through his inventory.

“Yeah! I found a honk ton! I found a dark oak forest and there were a ton in there!” He pulled at least 2 stacks of different mushrooms out of his inventory and dumped them on the ground.

“YOO! If we grow some of these we can get at least 20 stacks of mushroom blocks! That’s definitely enough Sapnap, you’re the best!”

“Hell yeah! What else do we need?” Karl stood up and looked over the materials they already had.

“I think we could use a bit more wood. I don’t wanna run low, and you can never have too much wood.” Karl gestured to the small pile of wood planks and the slightly larger pile of logs next to it.

“Got it! I’ll be back in a few hours. Just oak right?” Sapnap started walking towards the woods again.

“Hmm, yup, just oak should be good. Thanks, Sapnap!” Karl waved as he left, going back to moving planks to his next building.

He eventually had moved enough planks to start building, but as soon as he placed the first plank, the world seemed to open up under him. Most people would be fairly startled at this happening, but Karl just sighed as he fell through the portal and popped out in a completely different place. This was a common occurrence for him, he just had to hope he’d come back to his new library instead of his old one.

He floated through the void for a few long moments before he found himself at the outskirts of a forest. It seemed familiar, but he had probably just been sent near the DreamSMP far in the past. It had happened before. He walked towards the quickly thinning trees until he walked out to find a towering black wall blocking his way, he walked around it to investigate further, maybe find why he was sent here. This seems all too familiar.

“Karl?” He spun around, not expecting his name. Before him stood Wilbur, alive and well, dressed in the old L’manburg uniform. “What’re you doing here, the election results aren’t being announced for at least four hours.

Four hours? L’manburg?? Why was I sent to the election..? The last time I was sent to the near past I just removed a button, what am I meant to do here? Honk do I have to tamper with the ballo-

“Karl? Why are you here? You’re not a part of L’manburg.” Wilbur seemed much more impatient, how long was Karl ignoring him?

“Uhhh I was just walking by! Checking out the area before the election is decided!” He gave a sheepish smile, hoping Wilbur didn’t see through his lie.

Wilbur frowned and spun around, walking back into L’manburg, waving Karl off. “Fine fine, just go back to DreamSMP, or wherever you live right now.” Karl stood awkwardly, watching Wilbur until he disappeared back behind the black walls. He let out a sigh of reveal and started work on figuring out what he was going to do. He knew it was September 22nd, the day of the election. He knew he was just outside L’manburg, and he knew Wilbur was the current president, and that in just about five hours, Schlatt would become president.

He needed to stop that from happening.

But how? He didn’t know where the ballots were stored, or when they were counted. Had they been counted? He sure hoped so, or whatever plans he made would have to be completely reconstructed. He knew that if he could find the ballot box, there were only one or two votes for Schlatt he’d have to remove. Then he would just have to wait and hope he wasn’t caught. Then he would be sent back to the present and go on with his life. Nothing he does in the past or future ever affects the present. 

He thinks over where the ballot box might be. It could be somewhere on the podium, that seems the most likely. It could be in the caravan, or it could be on Wilbur’s person, though that seems unlikely.

He decides he’s going to find himself an invisibility potion or two, sneak in, and change up the votes a bit. There were only so many people eligible to vote in L’manburg, there couldn’t be too many votes to sort out.

He heads off to Eret’s castle. He hoped even though it would only be partly built that he could find something there. He snuck around the two towers and searched the chests. He was able to find two half-empty invisibility potions, and he hoped they would last. He stuffed them in his inventory and walked back towards L’manburg as casually as he could. He downed the first potion the second he could see the caravan from outside the walls.

He sprinted to the podium as fast as he could, nobody was near it, luckily. He searched through the back drawers and shelves as quickly and thoroughly as he could. He didn’t find anything that looked like it could be the ballot box, so he headed over to the caravan, hoping it would be tucked away somewhere in there.

As he hit the button to open the door he could start to see the outline of his hand appearing. He ducked into the van and downed the other potion, and began his search. 

He had almost given up the search when he found it. A black shoebox with a jagged hole cut in the top labeled “VOTES” in messy handwriting. Inside were a couple dozen folded pieces of paper. He unfolded and refolded the ballots as fast as he could, shoving two labeled “Schlatt” in his back pocket. He closed the lid of the haphazard ballot box and rushed to leave the caravan when he slammed into someone.

“AGH- HEY! WHO’S THERE?!” Tommy was staring straight through him, Karl as straight as a board, trying his best to stay silent. “I know someone’s there, no way I walked into thin air.” He shot his hand forward, pushing Karl backward. “HEY! Tubbo if this is out playing one of your stupid tricks again I’ll kill you before the election even starts. Tommy continued feeling around to find him, threatening him as he searched. Karl was trying to figure out a way to maneuver around Tommy without bumping into him. He knew he only had so much more time before he started fading back into visibility, and there was no other way out. He ducked and dodged for around a minute until Wilbur came in behind Tommy.

“Tommy, what the hell are you doing.” Wilbur peered over Tommy’s shoulder.  
“There’s someone in here! They’re invisible- I know they’re in here. It’s probably Tubbo playing one of his dumb tricks.” Tommy stopped swinging around trying to find Karl.

“Tommy there’s nobody in here, you’re probably just seeing things. Come on, I need your help setting up the chairs.” Wilbur put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and practically dragged him out of the van, Tommy complaining the whole way.

Karl let out a sigh the second the door shut. He watched as they walked toward the podium, and as soon as he thought they were far enough he sprinted as fast as he could. 

He ran into the woods and slid onto the floor, resting his back against a tree. That was close. But that was all he had to do right? Switch out the ballots and watch as Wilbur won. He assumed he was stuck here until Wilbur officially won, and decided to try and find Sapnap or Quackity. If he was stuck here for another two hours or so, he wasn’t gonna spend it sitting in the forest until the election was called.

He made his way out of the forest and headed towards where he thought he remembered Sapnap’s house being.

“Hey, bitch.” Karl slowly turned around. Tommy was scowling, looking Karl up and down as if trying to find something off about him. “Why the fuck were you in the woods.”

Karl smiled slightly, “I was just getting some wood! I’m building a house!”

“You’re building another house? Don’t you have like a hundred already?” Tommy was suspicious of him. 

“What’s one more then?” Karl tried to play it off with a smile and a wave.

“What do you even need a hundred houses for? Not like they’re gonna get blown up or somethin’.” Tommy said, not yet knowing the irony behind that statement.

“You never know. Plus it’s fun!” Karl started walking backward, trying to ease himself out of the conversation. 

“Sure big man.” Tommy turned around and walked back into L’manburg, immediately yelling at Wilbur again. Karl sighed and started walking to Sapnap’s house, a little faster than he would normally walk.

Karl was sitting at the back of the audience, watching Tubbo count the ballots. He hadn’t been able to find Sapnap and had ended up wandering around the SMP. He was sitting next to Jack Manifold, who seemed very out of character compared to the Jack Manifold that he knew today. Not looking around at everything, acting like he was going to be caught doing something any second

Almost everyone seemed at least a little off. Niki seemed happier, Wilbur seemed sane, Tommy was much more laid back. Everyone seemed calmer. And if all went to plan, it would stay that way.

“Great people of this nation!” Wilbur’s booking voice echoed off the walls. “The ballots have been counted! The results will be announced shortly.” Tubbo quickly handed over the ballot box with the results taped on the lid. He whispered something to Wilbur as he left, Wilbur nodding in response.

“Now before I announce the scores, I need to ask you something, Fundy.” Wilbur turned towards his son, standing on the edge of the podium.

“Yes?” Wilbur looked back down at the ballot box.

“How come there's six extra ballots written in the same handwriting, all voting for coconut?”

An awkward silence rang out through the field. 

“Uh-huh. So we’ve removed those six ballots.” Wilbur leans down to Tubbo. “Tubbo did you account for the fake ballots or do you have to recount.” Tubbo nodded. “Ok! Now let me read the actual results.

Wilbur set the ballot box on the podium and ripped the paper off the top. “In last place, with nine percent of the vote, Coconut is out of the race.” Fundy and Niki sighed, probably already knowing they lost and sat back in the audience.

“Next, with twelve percent of the vote, Schlatt is out.” Schlatt reluctantly sat back in the audience. 

“Now there are only two more possible winners. Pog and Swag. And the winner, with forty-seven percent of the vote, is, Pog!” Tommy jumped up and ran to the center of the podium.

“FUCK YEAH! WE WON! HAHA SUCK IT QUACKITY.” Tubbo pulled Tommy back to the side by his sleeve, whispering something to him, immediately dampening his mood. 

“Before this election comes to a close, I have an announcement.” Quackity pushed Wilbur to the side and pulled the mic down to be level with his face.

“Since my running mate George has decided to sleep through the election. Me and Schlatt have decided to pool our votes to form a new party, with Schlatt running for president and me as his running mate.” Quackity stepped back from the mic.

Wilbur stepped back up and adjusted the mic. “Thank you, Quackity for your speech. Let me add the votes really quick.” Wilbur looked over the paper quickly, doing quick mental math. “Ok, I’ve done the math. Schlatt’s twelve percent, combined with Swag’s thirty-two, adds up to forty-four percent. Exactly three percent less than Pog'' Wilbur grinned. “Which leaves Pog as the winning party.” Tommy jumped up and started yelling again. 

“HAHA YEAH! WE WON FOR REAL THIS TIME!” Many others jumped up in celebration as well, even Fundy and Niki gave a few shouts of support. Wilbur tapped the mic a few times to get the attention again. 

He cleared his throat, leaned into the mic, and yelled, “FUCK YEAH!” Destroying everyone's eardrums in a hundred-meter radius. The crowd erupted back into cheers, even the other losing parties joining in on the cheerful yelling. It made the once serious matter seem more like a playful thing, everybody just joining for the fun of it, knowing they’d lose.

Niki and Fundy came out from behind the caravan with plates of food and things. The chairs were reorganized into a rough circle, and they all celebrated this meaningless victory into the night. 

Karl was grabbing another sandwich when he felt the ground open underneath him again. He let himself fall, despite how much he wanted to stay in this calm reality. No wars to be seen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning for slight panic here 👍
> 
> yoo we back in da present pog champ

Karl fell into his library, luckily his new one. He grabbed an empty book and started writing the story of The L’manburg Election.

L’manburg was having its first-ever election. The parties running were Pog Swag Schlatt and Coconut. Predictably, Pog had won, and despite their differences, the four parties and the attendees of the event had celebrated into the night, forgetting all the wars and blood that had been spilled to get here. 

He signed the book and slotted it in right next to The Wild West. He opened his diary and wrote the more secret details of his trip.

I traveled back to the L’manburg election. I was able to tamper with the ballots in Pog’s favor. I’ve never traveled to the near past, especially not during L’manburg’s existence. I hope whatever timeline that was, turns out better than this one. I didn’t go to The Inbetween this time. I wonder why?

Karl clicked the book closed and set it on top of the bookshelf. He moved the secret door as quietly as he could, he was glad he made the whole secret library before anything else. But when he stepped outside he saw all of the buildings he built in the past few days, gone without a trace. 

“Sapnap?” Karl stepped outside, looking around. “George?” He ran to the edge of the forest he remembered Sapnap leaving through. “SAPNAP?” He ran to the ocean George was building a dock on “GEORGE?” Karl was rushing around the town trying to find anything, anyone.

He ran past his library, slamming the door as he passed. He ran as fast as he could back to the Greater DreamSMP. He had almost reached the nether portal when he saw someone he recognized. 

“SAPNAP!”

“Huh? Karl?” Karl barrelled into him, grabbing him in a hug. “Karl! Why were you in the woods?”

“What? I was in-” He suddenly realized exactly what was happening. Sometimes what he does in the past affects the future. He was currently living in the alternate reality that he had just caused a few minutes beforehand. L’manburgs reality. “-I waass just gathering wood! I’m building a house!”

“Again? What’re you building this time?” Karl wracked his brain for an idea.

“I’m building a library in the woods!” He decided on the first thing he thought of, not the best decision.

“Why in the woods?” Sapnap started walking towards the community house.

“It sounded fun! A library in the woods, cottagecore or whatever it is.” Karl gestured wildly as he spoke.

“Yeah, it does sound cool. What else d’ya need for it?”

“Hmm, I might need more bookshelves, and I need to collect a lot more books to put on the walls.” This part was true. He needed an extra bookshelf for the stories in the secret part of the library, and he needed more empty books to fill, he was running low.

“I’m sure you could grab some from Wilbur, he’s building a library in L’manburg with Fundy.” This caught Karl off guard. He had assumed he was in the future with Wilbur as president, but he still hadn’t expected Wilbur and L’manburg to exist, somehow.

“Oh yeah! I’ll go talk to them.” He jogged ahead of Sapnap and waved at him as he left. Karl finally looked over to the community house and saw it in the exact condition as it had been when it was built. Not exploded, not rebuilt, just the same old community house. It was shocking to see, but not shocking once he thought about it. Schlatt was never president, so most of the conflicts centered around L’manburg never would have happened. Pretty much everything that’s gone wrong in this server was started by that damn election. Had the server just been in serene peace since the election, or were there just different conflicts caused by different people. He had to find out as soon as he could.

He jogged to L’manburg as fast as he could, taking in his surroundings the best he could as he ran past the all too different buildings. The ice cream and flower shops were both completely missing, Tubbo’s old house seemed to be in the middle of being rebuilt, Walmart was still there. But there was one huge difference that stood out to Karl everywhere he looked.

The blood vines were completely gone.

The Prime Path looked so weird without the creepy red vines lurking around every corner. He walked down the path and didn’t hear the almost tempting whispers trying to worm its way into his head. He didn’t have to step over the thinner vines and cut away the ones too large to step over. He didn’t have to look at Bad and see a mind-controlled husk. Or look at Ant and have his bright red eyes seem to stare into his very soul.

Hopefully, this wasn’t just a weird trick The Inbetween was playing on him or a weird dream.

Before he knew it he was walking up to L’manburg, seeing the flag appear over the horizon. He reached the border of L’manburg and it looked the most relaxed he had ever seen anywhere be on the DreamSMP. Tubbo was outside, doing some Redstone project. Niki was just walking into her bakery, still in the same place. Wilbur was standing outside a new-looking building, probably the library, looking through a book. He looking almost the same as election day, maybe a little older. 

“Hey, Wilbur!” Karl jumped down the steps to greet Wilbur.

“Oh hey, Karl. What’re you doin’ here.” Wilbur tucked his book into his jacket pocket.

“I heard you might have a few spare books? I’m building a library and I want to fill the empty spaces.”

“Oh yeah, we should have a few extra books. I think Techno dropped off a bunch of old Greek Mythology books he didn’t want. Would those work?” Wilbur started walking inside to grab some of the books.

“Yeah, those work fine! I just need them to fill space, don’t care too much about the contents.” Karl waved him off and followed him inside.

Wilbur motioned for Karl to stay in the main area. He disappeared behind a curtain for a few moments and came out with a small crate of books in hand. He dropped them into Karl’s hands. It was a lot heavier than it looked.

“You’d actually kinda be doin’ me a favor taking those. Techno’s really the only one that reads this kinda stuff.

“It looks pretty interesting though.” Karl picked up one of the books and flipped through it.

“Yeah, I guess. Thanks for taking them.” Wilbur waved him off and disappeared behind the curtain again.

“Thanks for giving them to me!” Karl waved even though Wilbur couldn’t see, and left L’manburg.

Karl was heading back to his library with books in hand when he heard someone running towards him from behind. 

“KARL!” He spun around to see Ranboo trying to catch his breath behind him.

“Hey, Ranboo. What’s up? What’d you run here for?”

“Why- Why is everything- different?!” Karl raised an eyebrow.

“I woke up today and I was in my panic room- long story- and I came out and L’manburg was still there?? The old one?? Like before it was blown up the second time. And all of the vines are gone and Wilbur is alive I couldn’t find anyone who understood what I was talking about they thought I just forgot again and Techno and Phil still live in DreamSMP and the whole arctic area is gone and the entire prison is gone and I saw Dream just wandering around and-”

“Hey hey Ranboo calm down.” Karl dropped the crate and gently put his hands on Ranboo’s shoulders to try and calm him down. Karl was also internally freaking out. How did Ranboo remember the same things he did. Was he also a time traveler, or was it something to do with his enderman side? Or maybe whatever the other half was? “Okay. Okay, Ranboo come here, can you walk with me? I wanna talk to you somewhere else.” 

Karl tried to guide Ranboo with him while also carrying the crate of books. Ranboo followed him to the outskirts of the woods his library in, and he sat them down on a fallen down tree.

“Okay, Ranboo. I’m guessing you’re in the same situation as me.” Ranboo looked down at him expectantly. “So I’m a time traveler. I’m not sure if you are, but I do know that you’re from the same timeline I came from before this. Just before this, I was sent to the first election, and I changed the ballots so Wilbur won instead of Schlatt, and I guess this basically changed everything that’s happened since then? I didn’t think it’d actually alter the future, at least not this drastically.”

Ranboo blinked at him silently for what felt like way too long before speaking. “So… you went into the past and rigged the election… and now everything’s changed?”

Karl nodded. “That’s basically it. And before you ask, I can’t choose when or where I travel to so there’s no way to change it back unless I get really lucky.”

“So we’re just stuck like this now?” Ranboo looked terrified.

“Yeah. At least it seems a lot better in this timeline. L’manburg is still here and most wars and everything just didn’t happen.

“Yeah but-”

“Ranboo. It’s fine. We’re stuck here, so we might as well make the best of it.” Ranboo looked down at him again, somehow looking small despite being almost a foot taller than Karl.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll try… I wonder where I live here.”

“You could always stay with me in my library until you figure it out.”

“You’d do that? Are you sure?”

“Yeah! It’s really no trouble. Do you have any of your things anywhere else?”

“Uh yeah. I have my pets back in my panic room. I’ll go get them really fast.”

“Okay, that’s fine. I’ll send you the coords, just be aware there’s a chance I might not be there. If I’m not I’ll be back in like five minutes. Okay?”

“Okay.” Ranboo stood up and walked back toward L’manburg, and Karl started walking to his library.

He sat back down at his library, setting the heavy box of books on a bookcase. The server was so much more peaceful like this. He could get used to this.

He finally felt like he could lay back and relax for once. But then, the world seemed to open up under him, and he fell into the void once again.


End file.
